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THE RUNDOWN: Year of the Album 2011

With 2011 in the rear-view, how successful was my year of the album project?

A little over a year ago I took on a challenge I dubbed “the year of the album” — review everything that came across my desk which had inspired more than a cursory listen. In the end I knew that goal was a lofty one — too lofty, really — and in the end I managed to publish 89 album reviews under the “Year of the Album” banner, and had I reviewed every album I listened to more than a few times, that list would have been at least doubled. But the music I did write about in 2011 was definitely enough to disprove the theory that there’s nothing good to listen to in the pop music world. Far from it, I head into 2012 inspired to continue to ferret out as much independent pop music as I can, to show you dedicated “Hear! Hear!” readers that there’s always plenty to listen to when we’re willing to take charge and dig for it. That’s really the lesson to take from 2011 — there’s no longer a gatekeeper, so without radio to blame we have to blame only ourselves if we can’t find enough music outside the mainstream to keep our blood pumping.

For those of you who missed a review or two, here’s a one-stop shop of album reviews from the “Year of the Album” project: